The ash fell like snow.
It drifted in weightless flakes, glowing faintly as though each particle still remembered the fire that birthed it. Where once a Throne had hovered—its crown blazing with ancient indigo fire—there was only a hollow outline burning away into void. No body, no cry, no resistance. Just erasure.
The chamber groaned. Its obsidian walls fractured, rivers of searing blue fire bleeding down like veins. And above, the Thrones shuddered, their voices breaking into jagged tones that didn't sound like voices at all, but something older, something elemental.
"That… is not possible—"
"The cycle cannot be undone—"
"The origin has awakened."
The echoes overlapped, thousands of voices layered within one crown. But every word trembled. Every syllable dripped with fear.
Vemy's chest rose and fell with ragged force. His Prismarine fire quivered around his arms, no longer stable, no longer steady. It reacted violently to the sight above, pulling against his will as though recognizing something older, something it was made to follow.
He wanted to shout, to demand answers from the Thrones, to demand answers from this place. But his throat tightened. He couldn't breathe.
This was wrong. All of it was wrong.
Akiar landed beside him, blade still humming, though his usual calm mask was shattered. His storm lashed in wild arcs, sparks biting the broken floor. Even his cloak, normally untouched by heat, flickered with the strain.
"…Vemy," he hissed without taking his eyes off the massive violet-silver hand unfurling in the void above them. "Do you understand what you've brought here?"
Vemy's voice came hoarse, cracked from the pressure crushing his lungs. "I didn't summon it."
"No," Akiar growled, jaw clenched, "but it answers you."
The hand lingered, enormous fingers curling open as if beckoning. Veins of silver light pulsed through its skin, and where it moved, the void itself warped, bending and twisting. The Prismarine fire surged upward toward it like water to a drain, drawn against Vemy's control. His arms trembled violently as he tried to hold it back, but his flame wanted to obey.
The other Thrones shrieked in unison, their crowns blazing to the brink of collapse.
"Seal it—SEAL IT!"
"The chain must not break!"
"Contain the First!"
And then Vemy felt it.
Not in his ears.
Not in his mind.
But in his flame.
A whisper coiled through the Prismarine fire, resonant and infinite.
"Why fight me, child of shattered fire?
I am the spark that birthed your chains.
I am the first flame, and you—
—you are my return."
Vemy's body convulsed. His Prismarine fire bent violently, half of it ripped from his command as if his very soul had been split in two. Agony tore through his chest. It felt like invisible claws pried his ribs apart, like molten chains were being hammered into his bones.
He dropped to one knee, choking. The fire around his arms writhed like snakes, coiling upward toward the violet-silver hand.
Akiar's storm lashed brighter. He whipped his blade between Vemy and the hand, sparks screaming from its edge. "You're losing control."
Vemy snarled back through blood in his mouth, "Shut up—I'm not—"
But the Prismarine didn't listen. His words were empty against the pull of something older than his will.
Above, another Throne staggered. Its crown flared desperately, trying to resist, but the violet-silver hand turned toward it. Fingers curled. Light bled across the chamber like a tide.
Vemy and Akiar both froze.
If another Throne fell, if the crowns continued to unravel, then the cycle that chained this void—the balance that bound the world itself—would collapse.
The Thrones screamed in fragmented horror.
"Stop it!"
"Do not let him ascend!"
"The vessel must break before the chain shatters!"
But for the first time, Vemy wasn't staring at them.
He was staring at Akiar.
And in Akiar's storm-lit eyes, always cold, always composed—he saw it. Genuine fear.
Akiar gritted his teeth, sparks erupting from his blade as he took a stance. But the tremor in his jaw betrayed him. He wasn't just afraid of the hand. He was afraid of Vemy.
Then it happened.
The hand pulsed once, light searing through the chamber, and Vemy's body lurched forward. His head snapped up. His lips parted.
But the voice that came out wasn't his.
"The Thrones are ash.
The cycle ends tonight."
The words rippled, deeper than sound, shaking the void itself. The Prismarine flame flared with unnatural brilliance, fanning outward in jagged streams of glasslike fire. Vemy's eyes burned silver-blue, his veins glowing like molten cracks.
Akiar stepped back, blade raised, every instinct screaming at him to strike.
But he didn't.
Not yet.
Because what looked back at him wasn't just Vemy.
It wasn't even human.
It was something wearing him like a shell.
Something that had just declared war on eternity.